Spider-Man: No Way Home is bringing back several supervillains from Spider-Man’s past, none as great as Doctor Octopus.
Alfred Molina died at the end of Spider-Man 2 way back in 2004, sacrificing himself to strop the machine he built that threatened the world.
However, it turns out that he was saved somehow and Spider-Man: No Way Home will show how, likely through some sort of travel through the multiverse.
It could undo the entire redemption story he enjoyed in the movie, but that wouldn’t be new.
Marvel Comics has undid his entire redemption in the comics and has brought Doc Ock back as his old villainous self.
Marvel Comics undoes Superior Spider-Man
Some fans believe that Marvel Comics pays a little too much attention to what Disney and the MCU wants, and that includes changing characters in comics to fall in line with their MCU counterparts.
In the comics, there was a point where Spider-Man died.
This was in Amazing Spider-Man #700, which saw Spider-Man battle a cancer-stricken Doctor Octopus. It ended with Doctor Octopus dying, but not before he switched minds with Spider-Man, meaning Peter Parker was in Doc Ock’s body when he died and he took over Spider-Man’s body.
As Superior Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus became a superhero, albeit an arrogant and obnoxious superhero who thought he was always right. He was also a more powerful Spider-Man, thanks to Ock’s superior genius.
Eventually, Peter Parker regained access to his body and then, due to complicated mechanisms, Doc Ock returned, still in a body that looked like Peter Parker, and he remained Superior Spider-Man, working on the West Coast.
However, Marvel destroyed the character. When Octopus had to battle a Norman Osborn from the multiverse, he realized he was not ruthless enough to win. He made a deal with Mephisto to revert to Doctor Octopus, where he was willing to do anything to win.
It worked and Doctor Octopus saved his loved ones and friends, but then he turned his back on them all and left to go back to his life as Doctor Octopus.
In the most recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Kindred is building an army to battle Spider-Man and he has brought in Doctor Octopus, another way to erase the past few years of character development.
Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Way Home
One has to hope that Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Way Home is not a reversion to his old ways.
Even if this is a way to create the Sinister Six, Doctor Octopus received the best redemption possible in Spider-Man 2 and doesn’t deserve to go back to being a generic Spider-Man villain.
Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters on December 17, 2021. Check out the full Marvel movie release schedule here.